Idea Cellular lost a total of 4.21 million mobile Internet connections during the quarter ended June 2017 (Q1FY18), down to 38.12 million from 42.23 million data connections last quarter. Comparing this to the same quarter last year (Q1FY17), Idea had 49.05 million data connections. The telco also lost 6.35 million mobile data connections in Q4FY17 and another 532,000 4G only connections in Q3FY17 after Reliance Jio’s aggressive entry into the market. Out of 4.11 million data connections that it lost in this quarter, 1.73 million connections were on 3G, while the rest were on the 2G standard. However, it gained 3.41 million 4G data connections during the quarter, showing signs of recovery from the intensively competitive market. Idea’s 4G connection base has gone from 3.06 million at the end of March 2017 to around 6.47 million 4G data connections at the end of June 2017. On a Year-on-Year basis, Idea has gone from 1.8 million 4G connections in June 2016 to 6.47 million in June 2017. Data usage and ARPU Idea’s 4G data volume usage stood at 67.62 billion MB at the end of the quarter, increasing significantly from 18.67 billion MB in the preceding quarter. The company said that it had 31.8 million 4G devices on its network during Q1 FY18, compared to 24.3 million 4G devices in the preceding quarter. The number of 4G cell towers increased to above 46,500 from 40,852 in the preceding quarter. Idea currently has 4G in 15 circles out of the 22 circle it operates in. Note…
